Recent blog posts

Welcome to DesktopLathes.com! The Taig products I offer can be found by browsing through the catalog or by searching for a product by part # or name. All current Taig Tools products (Lathes, Mills, CNC Ready Mills, and full line of Accessories) are available for purchase.

I was given a heavily used snapper lawn mower a few years ago and it has been a great riding mower! However, it was made in the mid 90's and has several parts in need of attention. Lately the deck belt has been jumping its pulley system every time I disengage the blades. Apparently 20 years of the tensioning pulley pivoting on its hinge has caused some wear. This turned out to be a perfect job for the lathe. Here we go!

I recently picked up an old 13 inch South Bend lathe and have been working to get it up and running. Here it sits, just off the trailer and inside the garage.. yay! The first thing I noticed was that the clutch handle swiveled freely (not meant to work that way).

The clutch worked but not well, and the set screw that locks the handle from rotating was fully set. After taking things apart and pouring over the parts breakdown illustrations, I came to the conclusion that I must have inherited some hybrid assembly that was perhaps made up of more than one design. Regardless, I needed something that would function like a pin and a key at the same time, so I made one on the Taig micro lathe!

This is part 1 of the Can Cooler Project (as of this post, still a work in progress). The plan is to make a small standalone soda can cooler that can rapidly chill on demand, a single 12 oz can of soda. Here is what I have so far!

A local customer recently purchased the K1019 lathe kit and found a nice old 1/4 hp AC motor on craigslist (and for only $25 $15!). The catch? Well, the shaft was 5/8" and that makes it 1/8" larger than the 1/2" pulley bore.

So there were two options: 1) Bore out the pulley to 5/8" or 2) Make an adapter to step down from 5/8" to a 1/2" shaft. Boring out the pulley would sacrifice the lowest belt setting (since the smallest groove is at less than 5/8" diameter) so we decided to make an adapter instead.